


Smoldering Embers

by lastrequiem



Category: Dark Shadows (2012)
Genre: Cults, Dom/sub, F/F, Femslash, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:14:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21896479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastrequiem/pseuds/lastrequiem
Summary: She's obsessed over him for far too long--but change is in the air. The Angel Bay of 2019 has gone international, and Collinsport, Maine has never seen such an influx of new blood.---This fic diverges from the events of the movie, around the middle. Angelique is able to make Barnabas disappear for a second time, and ends up owning the ancestral manor. An unusual turn of events brings a 20-something named Autumn to the town, which is beginning to look more like a small city.
Relationships: Angelique Bouchard Collins/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	1. A New Beginning

_Collinsport, Maine_ , I thought to myself, as I squinted at the flickering overhead monitor reading OUTBOUND FLIGHTS. Getting a direct flight from New York City had been impossible, so I was feeling the cloying need for a coffee pounding against my sleep-deprived skull. I sighed when I finally found my flight. _PWN (Portland) to ANG (Collinsport)_. My layover was going to take another three hours. _I could probably walk there faster. Hell, could rent a car..._ But money was tight, and I'd already bought my ticket, so that was that.

I shrugged off my duffel bag into one of the many seats in the waiting area, and collapsed into it, newly purchased red eye in hand. I took it black, like always, and I savored the rich bitterness of the oxidized roast. While I sat there amidst the throng of Portlanders, I warmed my hands on my cup and stared into space.

* * *

It was a single, bizarre event that had brought me to the dingiest wing of the Portland airport, about to board a flight to a town known almost entirely for its fishing industry. I had been employed as a caretaker at an assisted living facility in the Upper West Side of Manhattan--a stint I knew I should have been thankful for. I had left my home town years before, and had worked odd-jobs ever since. This one had been one of the better ones. Tucked away among the stately and opulent homes, the facility had been quite a bit older, and more modest, though it was well taken care of. As close as it was to Hell's Kitchen, I'd enjoyed my time there, though it had been hard, honest work. It had not lasted as long as I thought or hoped it would.

The man that had ended my short career there had known my name, my full name, before I had introduced myself.

I had been at the facility for about a year before I'd been assigned Mr. Abernathy's care. I'd heard from a few of the other nurses that his previous caretaker had taken her own life--overwork, it seemed, and a number of sudden misfortunes in the family. _How quickly misfortunes pile up,_ I'd thought at the time.

I'd been told Mr. Abernathy was afflicted with early onset dementia, and had been for several years. He was one of the easier ones. The others described him often as being "off in his own little world, and docile."

When I stepped into his room, I knew at once that the poor man had not had any visitors in a very long time. The vases placed out on the low table against the opposite wall had not been dusted in ages, and stood empty. There were no books, papers, or any other furnishing beyond what was standard for the facility, and the curtains were stiff, and closed, as per the doctor's orders. Mr. Abernathy, a thin wisp of a man, looked to be at least 70, though his paperwork made it clear he was 53. I remember feeling a rush of sorrow, seeing him in such a spartan space. Alone, trapped in an ailing brain. Lit only by the sickly light of an overhead fluorescent.

He spoke before I had a chance to greet him, he spoke. His voice was rough, almost hoarse. Yet there was a mellow richness to it, like the glow of an old radio's vacuum tube.

"Autumn Octavia Van der Eerden." I paused, my knuckles whitening around the tray of food I was meant to feed him. It had been so quiet that I was sure I had simply imagined him speaking those words. And yet, there was a small seed of fear.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Abernathy," I'd said, keeping my voice light and pleasant. I prayed again that I had imagined it, lest that small seed of fear blossom. "I'll be your caretaker from now on. I've got your lunch--"

"Octavia is such a pretty name." The floor opened up underneath me.

_Calm, Autumn. Stay calm. He could have picked it up from one of the other nurses._

Sure. He might have been told beforehand that Autumn would be taking care of him. Perhaps someone had told him my last name by mistake--often misspelled "Vandereerden." What shook me far more was that he'd known my middle name. My _real_ middle name. Octavia.

It was a name I hated. _Loathed._ I never gave it out, not to anyone, not even on official forms. The joke was that Van Der Eerden, a Dutch name, was quite long enough, so it served as both a middle and a last name. No one ever questioned it. These thoughts and others swirled in my mind, and my vision swam. _A panic attack,_ I thought, detached. _Appropriate._ _I should just ask him. Maybe he knew my parents..._

But then Mr. Abernathy was babbling, crying out, practically screaming.

"The light! Oh God, the light... It shines through every crack!" I quickly turned out the overhead light, but the difference was slight, and he continued to scream. "Blinding radiance, I glimpse the eternal! Cracks all around!" He was thrashing in his bed, frothing. His episode shook me from my stupor. I placed his food down on the sideboard, and buzzed for assistance before rushing to his side. His pulse had skyrocketed.

"Mr. Abernathy, everything's okay. You're going to be just fine. Just breathe." I held his head back, keeping his chin elevated, and looked around for a sedative, or a mouth-guard.

"Elanor?" He croaked, looking at me with unseeing eyes. "Elanor, my love. I finally see. My mind is illuminated." He clutched my hand on his cheek in his, not hard. A tender gesture, tainted with an exhilarated fear. His mask of a face broke into a grimace of pain. He groaned and released me, throwing himself back in agony against his pillows.

"The further I climb, the more I see! The further I climb, the more I see!"

A handful of nurses and other orderlies rushed from the hallway into the room, and quickly sedated him. His thrashing arms trembled and his lower lip quivered as he stared, wide-eyed, up at the stucco ceiling. His eyes flicked toward me, and a fresh new bolt of fear dropped into my stomach.

"We need to talk, O." Finally, he fell silent, and slumped into unconsciousness.

I do not remember much else of that first day taking care of him. I remember screaming after he said that. He had spoken in a much higher, softer voice, and there had been a tremulous note of fear. _We need to talk, O._ It was the very last thing my mother ever said to me, in that exact voice.

As it turned out, it was the last thing Mr. Abernathy ever said, too. I was told in hushed tones the following day that he had passed away in his sleep. A sudden cerebral aneurysm. No one dared to suggest that what had happened was my fault, but I could not shake the fear that it had been because of me. The single reprieve I afforded myself was that his passing had to have been painless, or close to it. That was only a small comfort to knowing a stranger's last words _before_ he said them, though.

I quit my job the next day. This decision was not questioned, even by my supervisor. The following week was a blur. My thoughts returned often to that stuffy assisted living facility, poorly ventilated in the late summer's heat. He lived there, still, in the dark recesses of my mind. Haunted me in the truest sense. After a fashion, my dreams began to take on a luminescent quality of their own, of odd places and strange events. Every night of that cursed week, I dreamt of his trembling exaltation. I was altogether unsurprised when, nine days after his passing, I received word that he had left for me a certain inheritance. "A bequest, from Reginald C. Abernathy," the letter had stated. "Named in his Last Will and Testament, you are humbly requested to secure transport to Collinsport, Maine, where the estate of the departed shall be partitioned." At the bottom, it listed the attorneys' offices in an old, stilted script.

It did not take much thought before I decided that I had to know who Mr. Abernathy had been, and how he had known about me. I dialed the number on the letter, and began making arrangements.

* * *

Over the intercom, I heard the final boarding call as though from miles away. Shaken from reverie, I tucked my long, auburn hair behind my left ear and frowned down into my now empty cup of coffee.

"Traitor," I murmured at it, and tossed it into a nearby bin. I hefted my bag up on my shoulder again, boarding pass in my other hand at the ready.

But then, a curious wave of _something_ passed through me, like a knife of cold. My mind reeled as I caught a momentary glimpse. A burst of yellow-blonde hair. A low chuckle, and an eerie, otherworldly hum. There was light, and darkness. My thoughts quivered as though every part of me was coiled in anticipation of a sudden release. It was immense, and bold. It was... distinctly pleasurable.

As then, as soon as it had come, it was gone. I was aware of once again feeling... empty. Normal. Was that right? Did feeling normal, also feel empty? I was suddenly aware of the practical reality of what had just happened. I'd worked long enough with ailing bodies and minds to know that more than likely, I had just hallucinated. It was stupid to think this, but I began to seriously fear that I had caught Mr. Abernathy's dementia.

I shook my head. _I've come this far. Time to see it through._ I boarded my flight without even thinking of turning away.

* * *

The flight was uneventful, and the view from my window-seat was obscured by cloud cover. Palpable feelings of excitement and fear danced in my chest as I drew ever nearer to Collinsport.

When I arrived, I was amazed at how small ANG airport was. Only three gates! But I had never before seen such a clean and well-decorated terminal. Paintings ranging from the realism style through the impressionist adorned most of the walls, and a large water feature cast tinkling reflections of light up on the vaulted walls and ceiling. The floor was polished granite of varying colors, inlaid in spirals, whorls, and other aquatic patterns.

A car was waiting for me, sent by the law offices. The driver was a curt, stony-faced man, wearing a dark suit. He towered over me, easily six and a half feet tall, and was bulky enough that he could easily have doubled as a bodyguard. His mouth barely flicked upwards into a polite smile. "Welcome to Collinsport, Miss Van Der Eerden."

"Thank you."

"You're expected at your lodgings. I'm sure you're aware that the probate and dispensation will be tomorrow at 11 o'clock sharp." I nodded. His voice was not as deep as I had imagined it would be. Unexpectedly formal. His eyes flicked quickly to the duffel bag I was awkwardly holding in my arms, anticipating a door to be opened.

"Oh. Let me get that for you," he said. It was not friendly, or warm. It was bordering on a command. I handed it over to him and shivered a little. I hadn't expected it to be so much cooler, and was still dressed somewhat for summer.

As I was getting into the car, I happened to glance over my shoulder at the strip of cars bordering the airport. Among the earth colors, there were a few sprays of color. A bright purple Jeep, and some blue sedans. In the half second glance I gave, I saw what had to be a 1970 Plymouth 'Cuda convertible, colored bright red, peeling out from behind the line in the distance. If my eyes didn't deceive me, someone with bright blonde hair was driving it.


	2. Hallways and Secrets

A hallway. Dark and gloomy, but richly decorated.

Periodic lights on the walls. Islands of light, or buoys at sea.

A plush carpet patterned in harvest colors.

And I was… walking. Yes. I was walking the length of the warm, breathless place. There was no sound that I could hear, and the air was very still. Muted. I realized I wasn’t sure how I’d arrived there, but the snarling head of fear I knew I should have seen did not bear its ugly face. The thought of _why_ I was walking, or where I was going, didn’t occur to me. I was inexplicably comfortable. Serene.

Like walking through water, my movements were slow, and languid. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was walking, or perhaps drifting. My legs were moving of their own accord. It seemed to me that it had always been this way, so I was unconcerned. In fact, I _wanted_ to keep going down this hallway. I was curious to know where it led.

Looking down I could see that I was dressed in a simple, pale-blue satin nightgown that swirled and tickled at my calves. I blushed when I realized I was wearing _only_ the nightgown. The startled embarrassment I felt was also fleeting, eased away by the calm quiet of the hallway.

After a time of this, I realized that I had never felt so comfortable walking in my entire life. The place was not familiar to me, yet I felt a strong sense of nostalgia for it. For the smell of old books, hardwood, and leather that hung all around me. For the portraits and pastoral landscapes that I was passing. For the vivid and exquisite sensation of the nightgown against my sensitive skin… Of the carpeting on my bare feet…

The connection between my feet and the carpet began to take up the entirety of my perception. Alone in a foreign corridor, that feeling anchored me. In stages, it evolved, growing more and more complex. It gripped me in that silent space, along with a mounting sense of expectation. To the bottoms of my feet, the carpet felt irresistibly smooth and silky. An endless, gentle caress, like fingers on warm porcelain.

The feeling of being stroked began to creep up my calves, as though I were sinking into the carpet. Somewhere, in some deep ventricle of my mind, I knew I should close my eyes. That I could stop moving. I did so, and the feelings increased ten-fold. I sighed and threw my head back, basking in the depth of the sensation. The feeling crept ever upward, and I began to sense a heartbeat in the silken pressure. It swirled around me, probing my thighs, clutching them with a sudden burst of desire. From behind me, silken hands flowed under my arms. They cupped my breasts and massaged them together. I gasped haltingly and moaned. Though everything around me compelled me to give in to pleasure, I paused. In that moment’s hesitation, I also opened my eyes.

The hallway had disappeared. I was in a dark void that nonetheless seemed to glow with the heat of my lust. Someone unseen was holding me close to their body. I felt the tickle of hair on my shoulder, could see delicately pale hands feeling my chest through the satiny nightgown.

“Awake at last, are we?” A husky, female voice purred hotly in my left ear. I looked down, and realized with a start that same burst of glowing, golden curls that I’d seen in my vision at the airport. Only this time, they were cascading down my chest.

“Who… are you?” I breathed.

"The girl of your dreams," she whispered in my ear. The shape of her voice suggested she was smirking. She kissed my cheek. Her lips were warm, and tender. I flinched, and turned away from her.

"Now, now. What's the matter, my pet?"

“I don’t belong to anyone,” I said, finding my voice. “I am not your pet.”

The hands released their grip on my chest, trailing down to hold me at my waist. Stepping around from behind me, the unseen woman faced me. I realized with a start that hers was the face I’d seen in my vision in the airport. She was looking at me with a sultry smirk on her oval-shaped face, mere inches from my own. Her skin was pale as alabaster, her features slight but intense. Her dark, deep-set eyes smoldered at me.

Reflexively, I pushed her away. Her smile flickered into a pout of frustration. I realized I could move, and I was slipping backwards away from her. _This is strange_ , I thought to myself. _This feels wrong. I’m not into women._ She pursued me, easily closing the distance between us as I continued to back away. Cracks began to appear in the air around me, and she stopped. A small thought arose, unbidden and quickly suppressed. _But it did feel good, didn’t it?_

The woman’s voice sounded out from the collapsing darkness. “We’ll see about that.”

She sounded more amused than angry. _Was she responding to what I’d just said, or to my thoughts?_ I wasn’t sure. Before I could ask, all the feelings of comfort, warmth, and nostalgia I’d been basking in rushed away. Rain sucked unceremoniously down a storm drain. The only feeling that lingered was the fear that had been held at bay, and a newfound sense of doubt. The void swallowed me, and I thought no more.

* * *

My heart pounding, I awoke. I was in the back seat of the town car that the law firm had sent for me, the burly driver still in front. The feverish fear of nightmare was tempered at once with the perspective of my waking mind. It had only been a dream, after all. Vivid and sensual, but a dream all the same. I would have laughed aloud had I been alone.

But the dream troubled me on some level, too. The more I thought about it, the less I seemed to understand. I stared unseeing out of one of the windows, finding it harder and harder to remember. Though I had just recalled it, the woman’s face was slipping away. Had there been a woman? Yes… I had seen that golden hair before… But even as I caught scattered notes of sensation, like the grazing of a plaster-white hand under pale blue satin, it was all evaporating. As each element unraveled, only the vaguest sense of unease was left.

Like the rain that had just started to fall from the overcast sky, the events of my troubled dream were slipping away out of my cupped hands. I had been walking in a hallway… I had been walking… And then nothing. The rain picked up, and soon the outside world was lost under curtains of white and gray.

* * *

“Miss Vandereerden. Welcome. We’ve been expecting you.” The man addressing me had barely any hair at all on his head, though he was sporting a salt-and-pepper colored moustache, and seemed reasonably fit. I was standing in the parlor of the Collinsport Inn, what had formerly been a very old house. It reminded me a great deal of my grandmother’s house in upstate New York. Old wooden banisters, throw rugs, and lace doilies on intricate side-tables. Charmingly quaint. I extended my hand.

“The pleasure is mine, Mister…?”

“Evans,” he said, inclining his head and clasping my hand briefly. “Randall Evans. Please, call me Randy. Everyone does.”

I smiled and nodded my acquiescence. “Randy it is then.”

“This your first time at the Inn?” I nodded again. He smiled a tight smile. _Not unfriendly. Just business_.

With that exchange of pleasantries, it seemed Randy had expended his capacity for chit-chat.

“So. You’re expected at Kreuger & Meinhoff tomorrow at 10, or so I am told. Is this correct?”

“That’s what they told me.”

“Good. I will show you to your room presently, but there are a few things you should know first. Breakfast will be served promptly at 8:30, and dinner is every day at 6. Kreuger has informed me that you are welcome to stay up to a week here, after which time further lodging will be your responsibility.”

“A week? But the reading of the will, and the dispensation… That’s all happening tomorrow, right? Why would I need to stay a whole week?”

Mr. Evans shrugged. “That is all I was told. Perhaps it was merely courtesy, since you’re from out of town.”

Though I was not opposed to staying longer, I found it strange. Putting it out of my mind for the time being, I followed him up the carved wooden stairs. I savored the rich creaking sounds that they made. _Places with history_ , I thought, _have so many more stories to tell than places like cities, where everything is always being stripped down, and updated._

A hallway with a low ceiling greeted us at the top of the stairs.

“Your room is at the very end, on the left,” Mr. Evans said. “I’d take you but I’m also cooking supper this evening.”

“I should be able to find it,” I joked, smiling. He inclined his head and smiled tersely again before excusing himself and trotting down the stairs.

 _What the heck is with these people?_ I thought, rolling my eyes. I had always thought small towns were meant to be close-knit, friendly communities. It felt like everyone here mistrusted or disliked me.

When I opened my door, a girl was sitting on my bed, evidently waiting for me to arrive. She looked a few years younger than me. Late teens, I guessed. She was wearing a ruffled, lacy black dress, of a Victorian design, with black lace gloves and a simple black choker. Her long black hair was carefully styled in a princess cut, and her dark make-up accentuated her large eyes. Rounding out her outfit, she was wearing heavy black boots and her nails were also painted black. I figured she had to be goth, or something similar. 

“I’m Renee,” she said, giving me a look over. Her expression became disdainful. “You look plain. Plain and boring."

I chuckled awkwardly. “Uh. Hi.” I wasn’t sure how to respond. I rather thought my outfit was cute. Frankly, I thought hers was too. “Nice to meet you. I’m--”

“Yeah, I know who you are. Autumn Van Der Eerden.” The look in her eye was playful. "Your name made you sound... eccentric." She said this word with considerable relish.

 _News sure does get around quick in small towns,_ I thought miserably. “Does _everyone_ know that I’m in Collinsport?”

She shook her head and I relaxed. “Not everybody.” She paused for a beat. “I think there might be a couple left who don’t bother with the comings and goings.” _What a little twerp._

I sighed and sat down in one of the chairs placed against the wall of my room. “I’d heard the town was getting bigger. Much bigger. I thought maybe--"

“That maybe, the bigger the town, the more likely the invention of privacy?” She answered, completing my thought. “You’d be wrong. I can’t go anywhere or do anything without somebody knowing about it.” Now she sighed, quite dramatically. I was finding her manner infuriating, particularly her insistence on completing my sentences for me. “Well, except for today.” Under her breath, I thought I heard her mutter something about being extra careful today.

“The total lack of privacy is pretty evident to me at the present moment,” I quipped, and fixed her with a pointed look.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she said, looking first at her nails and then up at me. The playful look I’d found in her eyes at first had hardened considerably. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”

I felt a chill for just a moment. “You’re just trying to scare me,” I said. “It’s not going to work.”

“You _should_ be scared,” she replied, still with that eerie seriousness in her expression.

It caught me off guard. “Scared of what? Your spooky outfit? Are you going to put a curse on me, Renee the Witch?”

She flushed scarlet and looked down. I found that I regretted saying it almost immediately.

To her credit, Renee didn’t storm off in a childish huff. She got up, smoothed out her dress, and walked towards me—towards the door. When she was right beside me, she turned. Her expression wasn’t angry. In fact, it was the faint yet genuine look of fear behind her hurt expression that caused my heart to immediately plummet.

“Leave Collinsport, Autumn. We’re all cursed, here.”

And then she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to have a beta for this/someone to discuss ideas with if anyone's interested

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to contact me at melancholic.embers@gmail.com if you'd like to collab or share prompts. Concrit welcome and appreciated.


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